Where is the "tactic" in building a spaceship?

[ViterboKnight]

Among the features of Beyond The Sword, they said:
"Building a spaceship will require more tactic. If your enemy launches his spaceship first, you can wait a while to make yours faster and have it land first".

I and Darius were running for a space victory, finishing our spaceships.
Darius launched his first, and I launched mine eight turns later.
Our spaceships were quite identical, but I built two engines, and Darius one.
I thought that the effort to build a second engine would be worth the time wasted.
Darius landed in twelve turns. Mine required ten turns.
All my effort only implied a spaceship two turns faster.
So, where is the "tactic" in building a spaceship?

 

[Refar]

Yes the engines are out of balance - they are very expensive - and add only very little to the ships speed.

 

[ViterboKnight]

They should have more importance.
For example, ten turns required with two engines, twenty turns with one engine.

 

[Refar]

Perhaps it is somewhere in the XML... Would be nice to chage it.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I think the tactics are in the fact that the more parts you put on the faster it will travel and the more likely it will be to reach its destination. That's not much I agree but perhaps you were ignoring/forgetting the probability part?

As a side note the number of engines shouldn't (realistically) matter a great deal so long as the thing can get off the ground. What's important is the fuel. So from this point of view a second engine doesn't really make the trip any faster but it does mean that the ship can have one engine fail and still continue (thus higher chance of arrival).

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Tactics? None. The strategy is of course reaching there before someone wins by culture. But you're right, no tactics. And space race is always a tech race, not a production race, anyway.

 

[Refar]

the engines do not change the chance of arrival tho. And the box advertised "More tactics in the space race" we have the right to expect some.

 

[Winged Monkey]

If you have enough good production cities and you're able to micromanage the teching and spaceship parts building properly, you should be able to shave off turns without delaying the launch too much, or at all. Of course, the hardest thing is the engine, and only 2 turns saved is admittedly on the low side.

 

[ChickenSalad]

Tactics to win space race?
Re-improve tiles around your most productive cities (and do anything else you can) to max hammers.
Build the space elevator.
Ramp up science to get all techs needed asap.

I've won several space races where I had started building dozens of turns later than the AI. But by maxing hammers and with the help of the elevator, I usually finished and sent off a complete ship before the AI.

 

[r_rolo1]

There is not much need of tactics regarding a SS launch in Bts , mainly because of the way that AI build their SS, a lot like they did in warlords: casings,...,engines and/or stasis chamber ( simply starting by the cheaper techs... ). That means that the AI doesn't have the chance of trying to make a hasty launch ( forcing the player to some more nail bitting and tactics ) because it has the casings and thrusters ready before it has acess to the engines ( most of the time ), making them to choose between a 1 engine slower ship now or a slightly faster ship ( 2 engines ) in some turns in the future. A smart human player in a tight SS race will beeline Fusion and make the engines and thrusters before the casings, to have the chance of trying a hasty launch of a faster SS ( less casings = faster and unsafer SS ), giving him a chance of getting to Alpha centauri faster than a complete SS launched 1 turn before.... It is strange that no AI ( AFAIK ) tries that strat ,seeing that some AI in BtS will do long beelines ( I've seen Mansa doing a really deep lib slingshot once... he even bypassed CS ). But without a AI trying to do that , there is not much of need of big tactics if you get to Fusion or Genetics first.

 

[obsolete]

Tactics? None. The strategy is of course reaching there before someone wins by culture. But you're right, no tactics. And space race is always a tech race, not a production race, anyway.

Not really. I've constantly been behind in tech races, but still beat them due to my production powerhouses, and not to mention a lot of other things added in BtS now. Getting all the techs first is just a small bonus, which often isn't enough on its own to even be an edge.

Now, what I don't understand, is this silly 'customization' of cockpit, and casings. It just changes the color or what? I would have thought, maybe having 2 choices of cockpits, where one is perhaps 4x as expensive, but shaves off extra time is where customization should come on. I guess the firaxis team was planning that, and decided to kick out the expansion a bit sooner to capitalize off their flag-ship title again at a prime opportunity.

I honestly don't care about changing the color, who the hell plays with that useless feature anyway?

 

[obsolete]

And BTW, I have never seen an AI launch without 100% casings, I suspect this is hard-coded that way. I have seen it launch with only 1 SS before. As to why sometimes they don't even bother launching when 100% complete.... I don't get it.

Who beta-tested this anyway?

 

[Yakk]

So what would have to happen to make SS more interesting?

First, steps towards an interstellar SS should be useful for the rest of the game.

Orbiting Lab (Project, grants +20% science to all cities, +50% SS production)
Asteroid Mining (Project, grants +15% production to all cities, +100% SS production)
Mars Colony (Project, grants +1 health and +2 happyness to all cities, +200% life support production)
Beanstalk (Wonder, grants +10% production to all cities, +50% commerce in the city it is built in, +100% SS production)
Orbiting Laser Array (Project, allows production of "laser bombardment" weapons)

Then, the ship itself:
Solar Sail: For launch/breaking, has 1 unit of weight
Ramscoop: Grants 1 unit of thrust, has 1 unit of weight
Life Support: Produces 1 unit of support, has 1 unit of weight
Crew Pod: Holds 1 unit of people, has 1 unit of weight
Structure: Produces 1 unit of support, has 1 unit of weight
Landing Pods: Lands 1 unit of colony, has 1 unit of weight

The trip:
The BATTLE function takes two arguments: A and B.
BATTLE(A, B) = A/(A+B)

Launch Time: 10*BATTLE(WEIGHT, SAILS*10)
Launch Problem Chance (each turn): BATTLE(WEIGHT, SAILS*30)
Travel Time: 30*BATTLE(WEIGHT,THRUST*10)
Travel Problem Chance (each turn): BATTLE(WEIGHT+THRUST*5, SUPPORT*10)
Arrival Time: 20*BATTLE(WEIGHT, SAILS*10)
Arrival Problem Chance (each turn): BATTLE(WEIGHT, SAILS*50)
Landing Time: 10*BATTLE(PEOPLE, COLONY)
Landing Problem Chance: BATTLE(10, PEOPLE+SQRT(PEOPLE*COLONY))

On top of the above:
Life Support Problem Chance (each turn): BATTLE(People, Support*3)

If you get a Problem, roll the same chance for each module in the ship. Failure means that module is now disabled. Life Support failures only hit Life Support and Crew Pods.

As the ship travels, things break down. You cannot eliminate the chance of failure -- the question is, can you build a durable enough ship to survive the failures?

More THRUST reduces travel time, but also makes each turn along the route more dangerous.

Solar Sails are needed to start up (which is assisted by the laser array, hence faster if a bit more dangerous) and break at the end, as ramscoops suck at slow speeds.

Finally, when you arrive, you have to unload your population into the planet. Everything could go pear shaped at this point if you didn't bring enough people or pods to set up a stable colony.

Of course, the above does suffer from "reload-itis", which is bad.

 

[ChickenSalad]

Making it more interesting?

Give the SDI a chance of intercepting enemy space ships at launch (at the cost of war (and maybe a global negative diplo hit)), together with the option to build more than 1 (unlimited?) space ships simultaneously as well as continuing to build after the first is launched (e.g. to opt for several fast ships with low chance of success).

 

[Jtownsend]

They need to add weaponry. The AI is welcome to get there first if my battlewagon arrives a year or two later with enough firepower to blast them to smithereens.

 

[Fireseal]

:Headshot:

 

[Supr49er]

Build Space Elevator.
Build ALL SS components.
Launch.
If AI has launched, and will beat you, attack and raze his capital.

 

[obsolete]

I definitely wouldn't mind seeing WEIGHT have some strategic importance. Then the player has to balance weight/hammers/time.

I just don't want things to be too CHANCY, as we know a lot of people already re-load the game when ever they pop a GP they don't like, then ask how to edit the .ini file so they can change the seeding. lolz

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

I've noticed you need to keep up your espionage spending. In one of my games I kept having parts sabotaged so I was forced to slow down my teching to Fusion because of it. Didn't matter anyway, I had Catherine next to me who destroyed me before I even launched.

God I hate her.

 

[AfterShafter]

Well, the fact that if the capital is razed while the ship is out the ship is lost adds something to the strategic side of it. Sometimes the best space race strategy is to build a naval invasion force and raze a coastal capital rather than trying to get your spaceship done first.